How to promote a successfull party/event?

[robos99]

Well the title pretty much says it all. I have a background in concert promoting, and I'm very familiar with that, but I'm curious as to how you go about promoting for a club, without using live entertainment (by live I mean bands). I'm also curious how some of you would handle promotions in general, whether it's for live entertainment or DJs or whatever....if you're willing to share your secrets.

[realityrox.com]

You are 10 FOLD more advanced in the club promotions with the concert promotion background! I have to jump off here for a gig, but I wanted to respond because this is a great thread....

Teen? He has mounds of info, too.

[BESTofBUFFALO]

Ahh promotions... my forte.

'Promotions' means to get the word out.

I'll tell you right now that the ULTIMATE form of promotion is word of mouth, BUT since you can't pay for that (not really), you have to invest in other things that will CREATE word of mouth.

So... what can you do/create in order to get people talking about your event...?

What do people do all day? What are you doing right now...?

People spend tons of time on their computers. So let's start with the internet.

Online Ideas:
* Facebook advertising
* Inviting people to facebook events
* Don't have friends on facebook yet? Make a profile and start adding them, every day, until you have over 2,000. Then whenever you have an event, post it on facebook & invite your list. POW! Tons of people now know about your party.
* Make a myspace page, add friends to it, and never stop.
* Do Myspace Bulletins
* Create an e-mail list (start getting e-mails from your customers!!) and send out e-mails whenever you have special events.

What are other ways of getting the word out to people...?

Print:
* Make flyers - The Postcard KIND! - They're cheap and they help get your message out to the masses. Leave tons in-house and leave some in different establishments that cater to your crowd (pizza places, tanning salons, whatever!). Flyer college campuses.
* Banners - Signs - Posters - And larger print media are awesome!
* Print Advertising (newspapers, magazines, etc.) is a WASTE in my opinion. Try and get in there for FREE! If your event is good enough they might do an article on it! Call them up and pitch the "story"

What else can you do...?

Radio is an option.

-Peter
http://www.thebestofbuffalo.com

[robos99]

Actually I was more thinking along the lines of specifically how to put on an event or promote a night at a nightclub, without the use of live bands. I come from the concert promotion/production world, so I'm well versed in promo and advertising (although I could use some tips on promo specific to these types of events. Are they much different?).

I just don't know anything about DJs and such. And until checking out reality's website, I didn't even know clubs were actually booking celebrities as talent. I always thought talent was only bands and DJs.

[realityrox.com]

You "Put on" the event in the same way you would a concert. You create a "theme" or an event, hire the talent - band, celebrity, DJ - or all 3, and you advertise.

Is that what you are asking? There is TONS to read on here - especially in the promotions section to see information regarding finding venues, selling them on it, percentages, sponsorship, etc...

[robos99]

Well I guess you summed it up pretty well there. I always thought it would be completely different than promoting a concert, but I guess it's not that far off.

Reality, you've put on both concerts and DJ/celebrity type events right? Would you find that one or the other is more or less riskier? Or is it all risky in general? One of the aspects I was never too fond of in live concert production is the great risk for losing lots of money.

[realityrox.com]

Personally, I think concerts are A LOT more risky. I never dabbled too much in local to regional shows only National Acts. It amazed me to no end that some talents would sell out in minutes in one city, and the next night half the tickets weren't sold for the next city. Talk about a panic attack. The risk, at least for me, isn't even worth taking anymore. The bigger concert companies have basically bought up all the tours and want the smaller promoters to pay more to make less and in most cases it just - for me - is too risky.

When we have DJ performers - or when someone is buying a celebrity for an event, we have little to NO setup, extra expense, extra crew, extra liability, fewer people to pay to fly in, it's just a lot easier and more economical. I see, at least in my business, with the celebrity talent, our numbers as far as turnouts are a LOT more even - we are busy at almost every single gig. I see the ones that aren't busy are venues that are holding on to what they can after a seriously negative event in the venue, or someone that hasn't done any advertising outside of telling their 4 best friends. You can't cheat that. When the few patrons that ARE in the venue have no idea that the celeb was supposed to be there, you know that there is no way the general public knew!!

I feel the DJ/Celeb route is ten fold easier than the music end - but don't get me wrong - I LOVE PROMOTING CONCERTS - it's just there is a lot LESS work (physically) involved....I will say people still seem to have some of the same issues as promoters (concert) which is effective advertising. It depends on your market and who you are targeting. You can't just rely on the old standards anymore.


Teen has a lot of very useful info on the concert business, too.


Jen
booking@realityrox.com = email
http://www.realityrox.com - booking site
http://www.realityrox.TV - series site

[ca. club owner]

Hey... its been awhile since I posted on here.. 1st I would like to say hello to the vets as well as newbies to the business.. I will keep it pretty basic since it seems there is alot of nice info already on here..

The main thing to any event is to figure out what kind of market are you after. An once you do that, then you can justify how you would go about marketing it. Every event is different on how to get your crowd. Some cater to myspace / face book. Print Ad's work pretty good, if the market you are after looks to that for whats going on. Radio is good, but getting alot of commercials is not the way. Usually the trick is to get a few commercials during the rush hour part of the morning. If in the area you live in has some big DJ that everyone likes in the morning. Like a steve harvey or something. If you have a big DJ comeing to town, try an get him interviewed on the radio during the hot part of the day. Which usually is morning rush hour, or after work rush hour. Where people may tune in to find out whats going on since they maybe stuck in traffic for 30min to an hr. I hate the radio, neva really listen to it. But I do catch myself sometimes checking the radio scene for whats up. Just to keep my ear to the way the promoting scene is going.

Lastly you can neva go wrong with fliers. Flood the city, just dont make them very big. Big ones get tossed in the trash, but something with a good size that can be tucked in a pocket or a purse for later review is good.

There many ways to get a place full. But it all starts with the target market..

With your back ground, you can add alot of that stuff you have done to any event. Just have to scale it down in size..


Money Talks In All Languages..

[Deak]

Luv this post! So much valuable info spewed all over the place... Call me the pickup man!